Overlord III

Overview

Although Overlord II just aired this past Winter, Overlord III has already come to a close. While this third season builds upon what was set in motion in the second season, there are still some unanswered questions from the original season of Overlord.

At the end of season one, it was revealed that there is likely another “player” somewhere in the world who is the one responsible for the brainwashing of Shalltear. However, despite the final episode of Overlord III being titled “Player vs Player” this mystery still hasn’t been solved.

This season can be broken down into three main arcs which I’ll be referring to as the Carne Village arc, the Workers arc, and the War arc. The first episode doesn’t fall into any of these arcs, but episodes 2-5, 6-9, and 10-13 coincide with the respective arcs.

Episode 1 of Overlord III was a filler episode, though I’m not entirely sure if it was an anime original filler episode or not. It seems more likely that it wasn’t anime original, because I don’t see why they would add filler as the first episode of a season. In the episode, Ainz gives the NPCs of Nazarick some time off to relax.

The Carne Village arc mainly follows Enri Emmot and the goblins she commands. The Giant of the East and Demon Snake of the West who live in the nearby forest are planning to attack the village, and Enri must decide what’s best for the people; do they stay and fight or flee?

Little do the people of Carne village know that the attack is actually set up by Ainz who is using it to test them as well as Lupisregina, the member of the Pleiades Maids who oversees the village. In the end they’re able to hold off the attack and Lupisregina bonds with the villagers a bit more.

While the Carne Village arc wasn’t all that interesting, the Workers arc that followed was. In this arc, a noble from the nearby Baharuth Empire sends multiple parties of Workers to investigate the Great Tomb of Nazarick. Workers are simply adventurers who aren’t with the guild.

Ainz is infuriated that anyone would dare intrude on the place he and his friends built together, and so he has Albedo and the other floor guardians set up a “welcoming party” for the intruders. In the end, none of the Workers make it out of Nazarick alive, and some even get the honor of being killed by Ainz himself.

In this arc, we got the first time the Overlord series has ever done something that made the viewers emotional. We know that Ainz has been losing his human emotion as he lives in his undead body, but now we’re shown how truly ruthless he can be.

He allows one of the Workers to escape, a girl who was simply trying to raise money so that she could rescue her sisters from their parents who waste all their money away. However, he then tells Shalltear to destroy her hope of leaving Nazarick alive, and then mercifully kill her.

In the final arc of the season, Nazarick formally enters into an alliance with the Baharuth Empire and declares war on the Re-Estize Kingdom, claiming that the town of E-Rantel lies within the new country of Nazarick’s borders. Up until this point, it seemed that Ainz was an ally of the Kingdom.

However, the emperor of Baharuth, Jircniv, is actually planning to betray Ainz and ally with the other major countries in the region. His reasoning is that Ainz is the greatest threat to the world that has ever appeared, and it will take all of the countries working together to even have a chance at bringing him down.

The season ends with Ainz launching a single attack which kills over 70,000 Re-Estize soldiers immediately, and then thousands more afterwards. He then fights a duel against Gazeff, the head warrior of the Kingdom, and kills him with one touch.

Oh, also back in Carne Village during this arc Enri becomes the new village chief and summons an entire goblin army which wipes out a portion of the Empire’s army. This scene had a lot of really bad CG animation though, so I was trying to forget about it.

New Character

There’s really only one new character who seems to matter going forward, and that’s Emperor Jircniv Rune Farlord El Nix of the Baharuth Empire. There are certainly other new characters introduced, but I can’t think of any major ones who actually survive to the end of the season.

I’ve mentioned before that I thought the cast of Overlord was getting too large, and it seems to have been dialed back a bit now. Yes, more and more new characters are being introduced, but less and less of them are actually sticking around as major players.

Despite looking like Gilgamesh from Fate/Zero, and being an emperor, Jircniv is actually a surprisingly good ruler. That said, since he’s a good guy and Ainz is a bad guy, he’s probably not long for this world and will be killed off within the next season or two.

Emperor Jircniv Rune Farlord El Nix

But what makes Emperor Jircniv so interesting to me is how he’s used to subvert our expectations about fantasy series. He looks like an evil emperor, and that’s exactly how he’s set up before we actually ever meet him.

Originally our view of the Empire came from the perspective of the Re-Estize Kingdom, the enemies of the Empire, so of course he was made to look evil. However, once we actually meet and get to know him, we realize that everything he does is actually for the good of the people.

Further, even once we know that Jircniv is a good guy, that still doesn’t change his role in the series, because our protagonist, Ainz, is the bad guy. Although the roles of protagonist and antagonist are swapped in Overlord, they still work against each other in the same ways.

We know that Jircniv is the good guy, but we somehow still root for Ainz to defeat him eventually because he’s the protagonist. This likely has to do with Jircniv’s appearance, and how conditioned we are to view an emperor clad in gold as an evil entity.

Conclusion

Overall I found Overlord III to be better than the two previous seasons, and so it gets a rating of 7/10. It hasn’t yet broken into the coveted 8+ category, but I can officially say that Overlord is a good anime, and I hope we don’t have to wait too long for the next season.

The OP for Overlord III is available here and features the song “VORACITY” by MYTH & ROID.

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